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Short abstract:

This paper looks at building information modelling (BIM) technology within the post-extractive building economy. It seeks to problematise BIM in its conception of buildings as spatial databases of clean “stuff” in the context of the emergent practices of circular construction and reuse.

Long abstract:

Much of the digital realm is rooted in the logic of abundance. Unlike the material world that is increasingly defined by the limits of growth, design software operates by a virtually endless supply of matter—things can be both generated and disposed at an instant. This principle is epitomised by the digital tools used in architectural design, most notably building information modelling (BIM). First conceptualised in the mid-1970s, nowadays the technology has become a widely adopted protocol for negotiating digital design processes and the material realities that underpin them.

Echoing Wendy Hui Chun’s critique of software as ideology, the paper seeks to frame the history of BIM software as a product of the imagination of 20th century industrial logic, and by extent—mass standardisation, precision manufacturing, and just-in-time production. It seeks to question BIM software's operating logic (constituted by clean, parametrically defined model parts and “off the shelf” availability) in context of the emergent practices urban mining and reuse of building materials, components, and construction waste that entail uncertainty, irregularity, and scarcity.

Through unpacking case studies and speculative research, the paper calls for a radical expansion of architecture’s capability of technical imagination in efforts of bridging the divide between circular material processes and their digital representations. It argues that architectural software needs to be retooled to embrace “dirty” forms of building information. In doing so, the paper identifies an opportunity for the discipline of architecture to reconfigure its position within the broader construction economy against the prevailing realities of corporate market consolidation.